Today, the White House is announcing that President Clinton will include
a substantial increase in his FY 2001 budget to significantly improve
the nation's ability to target, contain, control, and prevent outbreaks
of infectious disease. The nearly 50 percent increase, $20 million over
last year's funding level, will help fund a nationwide electronic
disease surveillance network. It will also help implement a new
initiative to harness the power of private sector laboratories in
increasing disease surveillance efforts.

EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES THREATEN THE PUBLIC HEALTH. Over the past
twenty years, America has made tremendous progress in its ability to
identify and address outbreaks of infectious disease. In 1982, it took
months to identify E.coli 0157:H7 as the cause of the first outbreaks of
bloody diarrhea. Now, using modern disease monitoring and laboratory
techniques, outbreaks can be identified early, causes can be identified,
and interventions can be initiated. Identifying an outbreak early makes
it easier to contain its spread, prevent illness, and save lives.
Nevertheless, newly emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases have
serious health consequences.

Once-conquered diseases continue to re-emerge in stronger, more virulent
forms. A number of diseases once thought to be under control, such as
dengue, have begun to increase and spread to new regions. The long-term
use and misuse of antibiotics has allowed many microorganisms to adapt
to these drugs, creating "superbugs" that render current treatments
ineffective. In recent years, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and
drug resistant pneumococcal infections (the most common cause of middle
ear infections in children and pneumonia in the elderly) have become
common. These infections result in longer hospital stays, rising health
care costs, and increasing death rates.

The incidence of newly emerging infectious diseases continues to rise.
Between 1973 and 1999, more than 35 newly emerging infectious diseases
were identified, including AIDS, toxic shock syndrome, Legionnaires
disease, Lyme disease, and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The emergence
of West-Nile like virus along the East Coast this year, and the recent
emergence of a novel strain of influenza pandemic in Hong Kong
underscore the ongoing threat that infectious diseases pose to our
health and the increasing impact they have on health care costs.

Infectious diseases contribute substantially to the escalating cost of
health care. Approximately one out of every six domestic health care
dollars is spent on infectious diseases, which account for 25 percent of
all physician visits and constitute the most common reason for
outpatient visits in the country. In addition, antimicrobial agents are
the second most frequently prescribed class of drugs in the United
States. Infectious complications in hospital settings result in an
estimated $20 billion in excess health care costs.

PRESIDENT CLINTON ANNOUNCES NEW, $20 MILLION INVESTMENT TO COMBAT
EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES. Today, The White House will announce that
President Clinton's FY 2001 budget will include an increase of nearly 50
percent over last year's funding level, to develop a national disease
surveillance system that can rapidly detect the infectious disease cases
that signal the beginning of an outbreak. The increased funding, which
supplements the CDC's current budget of $44.3 million for this
initiative, will ensure that disease outbreak information is used for
immediate public health action by:

Speeding the development of a national electronic disease surveillance
network. New funds will be used to enhance the development of an
electronic disease surveillance network in all 50 states. This new
network will develop a two-way information highway that will ensure the
timely transmission of information from physicians and health facilities
on the front lines to state health departments and the CDC in order to
rapidly assimilate information, pinpoint potential outbreaks, and alert
health care providers if there is a potential infectious disease threat.
Special emphasis will be placed on enhancing reporting systems in
emergency rooms, often the first contact between health care providers
and rare infectious diseases.

Getting critical information to doctors to ensure effective treatment
for infectious diseases. Information collected through these new
surveillance activities will also be compiled and sent to physicians
through this electronic infrastructure. This will enable physicians to
offer their patients more appropriate care. For example, physicians
will know which types of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, or which
strain of influenza is circulating amongst their patients, and prescribe
a more effective course of treatment.

Coordinating disease surveillance efforts with the private sector. New
funds will be invested in developing public-private partnerships to
ensure that commercial labs implement an electronic reporting system
compatible with the one currently being developed for state and local
public health departments. Under this system, private commercial labs,
with appropriate privacy protections, will automatically send
information on the incidence of infectious diseases to public health
departments for analysis and integration into larger surveillance
efforts. This will help make reporting of incidence of infectious
disease become commonplace. Pilot projects implementing this type of
system in seven states have indicated significant increases -- in some
states, as high as a 230 percent increase -- in reporting of infectious
disease. The increase in reported data provides a more complete picture
of disease incidence to public health officials, allowing them to move
quickly to address potential public health threats.